Universal Health Care

Support the No Social Security Benefit Cut Bill To the editor: Congress puts senior citizens at risk for benefit cuts, IOUs and massive new obligations and overwhelm Social Security. Take away their power to cut our Social Security benefits. We urge our U.S. representative to co-sponsor HR 236, the No Social Security Benefit Cut Bill. With President Obama, Democrats and Republicans already clashing on Capitol Hill, "Don't tread on me" is the best message senior citizens can send to Congress.

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett has served as the 6th District's Congressional representative since 1992, but in his last term he has abandoned the unquestioning allegiance to his party's policies. It is a refreshing and needed change in dealing with an White House administration that sometimes seems impervious to new ideas. Bartlett made national news last year when he argued that the world has reached the peak of its oil production and that conservation now is the only prudent course.

When U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., visited Hagerstown this week, he backed the idea of a law that would require everyone who could afford it to purchase health insurance. Those who didn't comply would pay a tax, which would be used to purchase insurance for those who don't do so voluntarily. If Cardin's plan sounds familiar, it's because it's based on one enacted in Massachusetts in 2006. In a May 2006 interview in The Herald-Mail, Cardin said, "I think Massachusetts has given us a way out. " Under a new Massachusetts law, by July 1, 2007, every citizen was required to purchase health insurance, just, as The Washington Post noted in April 2006, every driver must have car insurance.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the canaries in the coal mine in terms of forewarning us of solvency problems in the federal government. You may think Uncle Sam is always safe because, after all, he has the printing presses and if he runs out of money he can always just print some more. That didn't work in the Weimar Republic in 1923 or in Argentina from 1975 to 1991. A government can ruin its paper money to the point that no matter how fast it runs the presses it can't pay the utility bill to keep the presses rolling.

"I would like to thank The Herald-Mail for putting the proposed Washington County charter in the newspaper. I appreciate it. It was a nice edition to the paper. I also recommend that everyone reads it and understands what it says. It makes sense and we should vote for it. " - Boonsboro "For all of you people who want universal health care: People in Canada are complaining they have to wait three months for a biopsy. Time is of the essence in cancer prevention. Taxes will go up, and you will have long waiting lines, and no doctor of choice.

When I asked 6th District congressional candidate Andrew Duck how he expected to prevail over Rep. Roscoe Bartlett when so many other Democrats have failed, he had a simple answer: "I'm not like any of the other four or five Democrats," he said. If that sounds arrogant in print, in person it comes across as self-confidence developed through life experiences, starting with the rough and tumble of being one of 17 children. Duck, 43, graduated from Middletown High School in 1979 and enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 19, eventually becoming a military- intelligence officer.

I'm trying to find symbolism in the fact that Washington County's one great issue going into the 2008 legislative session is a light bulb. True, Allegheny Energy may have set the environmental movement back 10 years by trying to force energy efficient light bulbs down people's lamps, and lawmakers Kevin Kelly and Chris Shank are correct to see that this kind of subterfuge doesn't happen again. Still, it's hardly universal health care, or anything. On the state level, the big issue appears to be a preoccupation with running State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick out of town on a rail.

I caught myself watching the "Don't Call It a State of the Union" speech this week, and all I could think of was -- what ever happened to the War on Drugs? What was it, the late '80s when the only words that came out of any given politician's mouth were drugs, war and on. You would stop a Congress member on the street and ask for the time and he would answer "war on drugs, war on drugs, war on drugs. " So what happened? Did we win? Well, no. Drugs are as big a problem as ever, if not more so. The difference is we just stopped talking about it and eventually it went away, as a political issue, at least.

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. - The forum "Confused About the New Health Legislation?" will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 26, at Byrd Center for Legislative Studies on the campus of Shepherd University. Perry Bryant, executive director of West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, will present an overview and highlights of the health care act. Dr. David Baltierra, program director of the WVU Rural Family Medicine Residency in Harpers Ferry and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, will talk about the new law's limitations.

Support the No Social Security Benefit Cut Bill To the editor: Congress puts senior citizens at risk for benefit cuts, IOUs and massive new obligations and overwhelm Social Security. Take away their power to cut our Social Security benefits. We urge our U.S. representative to co-sponsor HR 236, the No Social Security Benefit Cut Bill. With President Obama, Democrats and Republicans already clashing on Capitol Hill, "Don't tread on me" is the best message senior citizens can send to Congress.

"I was reading in the paper the other day that now we have to supply the prisoners with kosher food. How much more are we gonna have to give? Isn't it something, that you think about your godly ways now? We already give three free meals a day, recreation, education free, medical free, a payday. " -- Sharpsburg "I had my oil tank filled last week. It was the lowest price of oil since March of '05. I just thought anybody debating whether to fill up now or wait, you might want to check that out. " -- Hagerstown "For the person in the paper that wanted to know about the Ali Ghan Shriners' circus, it is April 4 at Hagerstown Community College.

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. -- One of the best ways to provide health care for all Americans is just "expand Medicare to everybody," according to a speaker at a forum on the subject Tuesday night, Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Maryland pediatrician who left her practice to promote a nationwide single-payer health insurance system, said a national Medicare-like program could reform a system that currently leaves more than 47 million Americans without health insurance....

I caught myself watching the "Don't Call It a State of the Union" speech this week, and all I could think of was -- what ever happened to the War on Drugs? What was it, the late '80s when the only words that came out of any given politician's mouth were drugs, war and on. You would stop a Congress member on the street and ask for the time and he would answer "war on drugs, war on drugs, war on drugs. " So what happened? Did we win? Well, no. Drugs are as big a problem as ever, if not more so. The difference is we just stopped talking about it and eventually it went away, as a political issue, at least.

How strongly do you feel that you are right? About anything - political issues, stock picks, the Super Bowl outcome. To me, perhaps the most meaningful line of President Obama's inaugural address was the pre-emptive admission that his administration would make its share of goofs. Being right is a lot more important than believing you are right and you are a lot more disposed to get it right if you can admit sometimes that you are wrong. There is a strong attachment to being right, since this is a direct reflection on the ego. But when ego marches boldly in, there is less of a chance that failures will be recognized as failures and a new course pursued.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the canaries in the coal mine in terms of forewarning us of solvency problems in the federal government. You may think Uncle Sam is always safe because, after all, he has the printing presses and if he runs out of money he can always just print some more. That didn't work in the Weimar Republic in 1923 or in Argentina from 1975 to 1991. A government can ruin its paper money to the point that no matter how fast it runs the presses it can't pay the utility bill to keep the presses rolling.

I'm trying to find symbolism in the fact that Washington County's one great issue going into the 2008 legislative session is a light bulb. True, Allegheny Energy may have set the environmental movement back 10 years by trying to force energy efficient light bulbs down people's lamps, and lawmakers Kevin Kelly and Chris Shank are correct to see that this kind of subterfuge doesn't happen again. Still, it's hardly universal health care, or anything. On the state level, the big issue appears to be a preoccupation with running State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick out of town on a rail.